Rudolph’s Shiny New Year

It’s a special, post-Christmas bonus episode for your oversized ears!  Joey O. and Brandon Medley help us turn back the years to 1976 and tip an oversized hat to “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year,” Rankin/Bass’s first sequel special, in which Rudolph has to save the Baby New Year from a big, angry bird.  ****  Topics & Tangents:  Rudolph devolves into a younger-looking reindeer, because the original model may have been lost. But also he seems to forget he can fly.  According to our narrator, Father Time (Red Skelton), this story begins “on that very same foggy night.” As in Christmas Eve. When Santa’s kind of busy.  I learned who Red Skelton was from a joke in a Tex Avery cartoon.  “The Phantom Tollbooth.”  Tik-Tok from “Return to Oz.”  Creepier song about time: “The Moving Finger Writes” from this, or “Older” by They Might Be Giants?  Ralph Archibold, Philadelphia’s longtime Ben Franklin impersonator.  Billy Corgan rides a roller coaster.  ****  “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” © 1976 Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.